Senate Democrats literally refused to “stand up for women” Wednesday by boycotting a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Standing Up for Women in Sports.” The committee’s top Democrat, Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), said in his opening statement that “the American people” have little interest in the issue and that the hearing was just a “vendetta against a small number of people in the trans community.”
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The Democrat cited a number of issues he deemed more important than the trans takeover of women’s sports, and bounced before the witnesses were sworn in.
The hearing, led by Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ensued with zero Democrat witnesses, zero Democrat questioning, and zero Democrat participation.
“It can’t go unspoken that not one member on the other side of the aisle has had the respect for women to come in here and ask questions,” noted Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.). “To figure out how we get this right. How we stand up for fairness, for safety, for an opportunity for young women across the country.”
Britt added with frustration, “it’s absolutely absurd!”
The hearing was focused on ensuring fairness and safety for female athletes, with testimony from Kim Jones, co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sport (ICONS); Carly Smolak
former professional soccer player; and sports lawyer William Bock.
In her opening statement, Jones testified that ICONS works to ensure “women and girls have sex-separated categories for fair and safe competition at every level and in every sport.”
The group was established, she said, “after the world watched male athlete William Lia Thomas take an NCAA national title from women.”
We witnessed men winning national titles for women in amateur sports and college sports, men and boys atop women’s podiums around the country in high school sports from skiing, swimming, and track to volleyball, softball, and basketball. We do not know of any sport that is untouched. In some cases we have seen multiple boys on girl’s podiums and up to half of a girl’s track relay made up of boys who identify as girls.
“The threat of a man being in the locker room is terrorizing for women,” Jones later told Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), adding that forcing women to undress in front of males was tantamount to sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and voyeurism.
Smolak said in her opening statement that she felt “lucky” to have competed in women’s soccer in Oregon before the state began its “race to the bottom” of compromising the integrity of girls’ sports.
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“Today, we are failing young female athletes,” she stated. “We are forcing girls to choose between playing co-ed sports, or not playing at all. We are telling them that if they can’t compete with boys, they might not make the team.”
We are showing them that even if they are the fastest female athlete on the track, a boy might get the top podium spot. What we are saying is that boys can be better “female athletes” than girls.
Even worse is how we treat girls that do not consent to competing against males. We are training girls to suppress their correct instincts and feelings to cater to the desires of boys. This
is nothing short of mass grooming. We are failing female athletes as a society, and we are raising girls who are punished for standing up for what is right and obvious.
Bock stated in his testimony that a return to three foundational principles are needed to save women’s sports.
1) Sexual biology determines outcomes in sport—males have insurmountable biological advantages—making essential clearly defined, sex-based, categories for sport eligibility.
2) The two indispensable sex categories in sport—male and female—must be guarded vigorously through mandatory, non-intrusive, inexpensive, sex verification testing (in most cases a simple saliva test
3) Sports organizations must be legally accountable for protecting women’s rights to fair and safe competition and to women’s teams, locker rooms, and showers without male intruders.
Bock stated that most of the leaders running professional, Olympic, amateur, and scholastic women’s sports still refuse to abide by these basic principles.
“The principle that women, no less than men, are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the right to pursue happiness, is as necessary for human flourishing and the protection of equal dignity on America’s playing fields as it is in America’s corporate boardrooms, court rooms, and Halls of Congress,” he said. “Yet today, in professional, Olympic Movement, and scholastic sports, there are more men competing in women’s sports than ever before. The time to act is now.”
“I’m a little disappointed that my Democratic colleagues left,” quipped Senator John Kennedy (R-La.). “Many of our colleagues would have us believe that this … this campaign to have males compete against females in women’s sports is not a problem in America, but that’s not true, is it?”
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